The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) is a group of about 700 baseball writers that vote for four annual awards (Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year). They also choose whether players get enshrined into the Hall of Fame or not. When the BBWAA meet in early November to discuss their hall of fame ballot, it will be the final year of eligibility for a few notable players, including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. However, their accolades speak for themselves.

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants won seven MVPs (given to the best overall player in the league) and 12 silver sluggers (awarded to the best offensive player at each position). Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees won 7 Cy Young awards (given to the best pitcher in the league) and led the league in ERA (runs allowed per game) 7 times. Given all this information, why aren’t these players in the Hall of Fame yet? These players used steroids to enhance their performance.

These performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) increase muscle mass and decrease body fat, and are banned from all competitive sporting events across every level. Nevertheless, during their era of baseball, steroid use was so prominent that it is often referred to as the “steroid era.” In fact, estimates find that between 50% and 85% of major leaguers at that time were using steroids. This means that more often than not, juiced batters faced juiced pitchers, thus leveling the playing ground.

Some may argue that these users cheated to improve their statistics. However, that is simply not the case. Barry Bonds had already won 3 MVPs before he started using PEDs in 1993. Clemens had already won three Cy Youngs and an MVP before he started doping in 1996. Sammy Sosa, another well known steroid user, won six silver slugger awards and an MVP award. These awards should be enough to get them into the Hall of Fame.

While steroids do boost your strength, they do not sharpen your mind. These players have shown they can win without steroids and that they have the focus, work ethic, and strategy, as evidenced by their numerous accolades before they started using PEDs. In the words of the Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, “Baseball is 90% mental and the other 10% is physical.” Baseball players have to be able to adapt to different pitchers and pitches in order to accumulate better statistics, or to simply stay in the league.

Yes, steroids are illegal, but when it is so widespread, it is only fair for steroid users to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, since so many other players are using it. These players’ careers are tarnished by steroids, when in reality, they have done extremely well without steroids. We should not let a few years of cheating influence whether or not they get enshrined in the hall, let alone if other people use it as well.